Make Money Online

If you did a Google search between 6:30 a.m. PST and 7:25 a.m. PST this morning, you likely saw that the message “This site may harm your computer” accompanied each and every search result. This was clearly an error, and we are very sorry for the inconvenience caused to our users.

What happened? Very simply, human error. Google flags search results with the message “This site may harm your computer” if the site is known to install malicious software in the background or otherwise surreptitiously. We do this to protect our users against visiting sites that could harm their computers. We maintain a list of such sites

The following is part of a series covering the BlogWell conference which took place at Chicago’s Gleacher Center on Thursday, January 22.

H&R Block had a very successful initial foray into social media marketing. Their first effort: a 2007 sponsored YouTube video contest called “Me and My Super Sweet Refund Video Contest“, whose launch video earned over 1.6 million views and set a YouTube record that held for over six months.

“It was a good thing that our first effort was so positive, because it provided some valuable lessons, but also reduced initial internal resistance to this new medium,” said Paula Drum, Vice President of Marketing for Digital Solutions at H&R Block.

Stick to Your Core

Since that initial foray H&R Block tried additional humorous content, but found that “entertainment for its own sake did not work as well” as specific tax-related content. This result has been consistent across all the various social media efforts they’ve tried, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and others.

There was internal resistance, though, to providing tax advice in a social media context. Specifically, there was significant concern the company was giving away their core chargeable service for free. While in a superficial sense that is true, Drum agreed, the additional credibility and preference developed through providing that advice more than offsets whatever small audience may be lost.

Given the rollout of social media efforts since 2007, it appears obvious the corporation agrees with that view, and sticking to their core expertise in online marketing efforts not only obtains the best feedback and level of interaction from consumers online, it also leads to a very positive result for the company.

Expand Your Credibility and Relationship Online

Maximizing the impact of their social media efforts involved using and building on their credibility as tax experts. But how they implemented those social media efforts was critical as well.

“Allowing open comments has been key for us, as has complete transparency,” Drum said. “It’s also important that we understand each unique online platform and interact as appropriate for that site.” Twitter, for example, allows for and requires a deeper, more multi-faceted interaction with consumers than most other platforms.

Doing this properly leads to positive results. Drum gave the example of one surprising result from a Facebook campaign. They ran two different Facebook ads. The first was a direct response campaign (click here to buy our service). The second was a two-step campaign (click here to join our Facebook group). What they found was that the financial results of both campaigns were very similar, but for opposite reasons.

In the direct response campaign they had more consumers reach the offer page, but a much lower conversion rate. In the group campaign, they had fewer people reach the offer page from the ad via the group, but those people had a much higher conversion rate. Credibility earned via giving valuable content and building the relationship through the Facebook group more than offset the decreased clicks.

Drum also emphasized that working online has allowed H&R Block to transform what had traditionally been a 16-week-only relationship each year with consumers into a year-round relationship that builds a much stronger tie. Sticking to their expertise, focusing on relationships, and managing each platform appropriately has maximized that result for them.

Guest blogger James R. Dickey is Executive Director of Marketing for Unitrin Specialty. His personal web site is at jamesrdickey.com. Watch for more of his coverage of BlogWell coming soon.

Originally posted here:

With the current economic climate, this year’s Super Bowl wouldn’t be expected to be as super as it usually is. People won’t be spending as much money on parties, advertising budgets are cut, and people just aren’t as excited about big events. So what is the Super Bowl doing to remain successful this year? Social media.

Thanks to technology, the NFL is able to generate buzz by Twittering about all the happenings in Tampa this week. By rolling out a Super Bowl Twitter feed, the NFL hopes to get people talking and raise the level of excitement to that which normally surrounds the Super Bowl.

See original here:
The Twitter Bowl

Those of you who use Google Toolbar on Firefox are probably pretty familiar with the many features Toolbar 5 (beta) has to offer — from bookmarks to buttons and search box to “send to.” We’ve added a couple more features to the Firefox Toolbar, so feel free to download this “second beta” to get all the latest and greatest Google Toolbar has to offer.

One of the features I’m really excited about is the new tab page. Now, when you open up a new tab, instead of the blank white page you see by default in Firefox, you will instead see small thumbnails of your favorite sites (up to 9), as well as recently-closed and bookmarked pages based on your browser history. You can edit the thumbnails, and all this data remains locally on your browser, which means none of the information about your most viewed sites or recently closed pages will be sent back to Google. If for whatever reason you don’t like this updated new tab page, you can always change it back to a blank page or to the website of your choice through either your Toolbar or Firefox settings. Some tab extensions may conflict with this feature, and it currently isn’t compatible with Firefox 2, so make sure you check your settings or visit the Google Toolbar help center if you are having any problems.

Next time you want to go to your favorite site more quickly or restore an accidentally closed tab, you don’t need to type out the URL. Typing Ctrl + T or double-clicking to the right of your open tabs will open up the new tab page with all your favorite sites right at your finger tips.

In addition, this release now provides the ability for Hebrew- and Arabic-speaking users to access Toolbar 5 with robust right-to-left text support. We’ve also fixed some of the most reported bugs to give you a faster and more stable experience with this update.

We’re always working on improvements and new features to Google Toolbar based on your feedback, so keep those suggestions coming.

Posted by Sergey Ryazanov, Software Engineer, Toolbar Team

Originally posted here:
Google Toolbar in Firefox: a personalized new tab page

“You can’t put the genie back into the bottle” or so says the idiom. The issues surrounding adware have certainly been a “genie” for affiliate marketing.  We may have the opportunity to see if that genie really can be put back into the bottle, at least for a sub-set of adware applications, toolbars.

Yesterday Brian Littleton, CEO of ShareASale, announced a Toolbar Roundtable Discussion for next Tuesday.  The purpose is to receive input from the community for establishing guidelines for toolbar behavior within the ShareASale network.  This is a shift from the historical policy of ShareASale which has not allowed software in the network. Not unexpectedly, there is some heated discussion around the announcement in the ShareASale Forum on ABestWeb.com.

Many people mistakenly think that I am opposed to adware. This isn’t the case. Adware is just technology, which isn’t inherently good or bad. It’s just technology…ultimately a bunch of 1’s and 0’s strung together to elicit preplanned behavior from the computer of the end user.

What I have opposed over the years is the manner in which many adware applications generate revenue in the affiliate marketing channel.
I have been exceedingly frustrated at times by technology being abused to the point of causing schisms within our industry and stigmatizing the technology itself which, in reality, could have been positive for the affiliates, merchants, networks and consumers it was meant to serve.  On more than one occasion I have stated that adware does not have to be an issue within affiliate marketing.  For years now I have worked outline a model for adware behavior. Not once have I been asked the details of that model, at least until now.

My view is broader than just toolbars. I personally feel that it is possible for any adware application to be respectful of the rights of other internet businesses, benefit the consumer, and generate legitimate revenue, directly and/or indirectly, in the affiliate marketing channel. I now have the opportunity to share some of my views and thoughts on how this can be achieved.

There is a glaring reality that we cannot afford to overlook: the technology is here and it’s not going to suddenly go away. The genie isn’t going to just disappear. My contentions have been with the policy, both written and how acted upon in reality, for how adware is allowed to behave in the affiliate marketing channel. My mantra is behavior, behavior, behavior (to the point I get tired of hearing it myself!) not toolbar, widget or desktop app. I don’t have a problem with Google’s toolbar, but I do have a problem with most software generating revenue through the affiliate channel.

To this point, there has been two primary types of policy by networks and merchants regarding how affiliates can use software in the affiliate channel: not allowed at all (the parasite-free policy) or allowed under a set of conditions that are far less restrictive for affiliates than marketing through other means (the COC/Addendum policy). I have always been opposed to the COC/Addendum policy because I feel it allowed revenue generation that facilitated unfair competition and diminished the overall value of the affiliate channel. I have longed for a working policy (policy that is actually being used) that would address how software can be legitimately used within the affiliate channel sans all the controversy. Indeed, I strongly believe it is critical that our industry be able to produce such a working policy.

Why? So we can demonstrate our ability to self-regulate and foster the healthy growth of our industry. All established industries need to demonstrate this ability for long-term success. To this point, I don’t think we have been able to demonstrate an ability to effectively self-regulate the very technologies our industry depends upon. Affiliate marketing is a technology business after all.

There are currently various technologies used by affiliates in their marketing efforts.  Web sites, email, video, widgets and many other forms of technology are common.  Guidelines for acceptable use have been established for promotion though most of these technologies. Granted, there may be an occasional debate regarding a new way these technologies are used, but none have been as problematic as downloaded software. Nor has a policy of all or nothing been applied to defining their use by affiliates.

Any and all of the technologies used by affiliates can be potentially abused. Questionable revenue generation tactics as well as more malicious behavior can occur through any promotional method. We certainly don’t say that affiliates cannot use web sites, email, and video or social media technology as promotion mechanisms because the technology can, and at times is, abused. Of course we don’t! We set guidelines and then we work towards enforcing those guidelines.

Enforcing a policy for toolbars will not be without its own challenges. But all monitoring of promotion comes with unique challenges. There are millions of web pages, owned by the affiliate or by someone else, where bad behavior can occur. However, once policy is established for promotion through a web site, protocols for monitoring are developed.

While practices may not always be policed by some companies to the degree some desire, we all understand that ultimately it’s a matter of survival for our livelihoods to have a certain degree of self-regulation within these technologies.

The landscape has changed dramatically since 2002 when the COC/Addendum policy was released by the major networks of the time. There is no longer a huge cost barrier for any affiliate having downloadable software and there are several sources for acquiring your own toolbar for free or at a very low cost. Distribution channels are available that do not require bundling, especially for toolbars. This has resulted in literally tens of thousands of toolbars available for download.

Of course, not all of these operate within the affiliate channel, but there is an increasing number which do. Toolbars can engage in a very wide range of behaviors. I don’t feel that a global policy of   “X is not allowed” to be an adequate manner with which to address issues facing our industry in regards to a technology that is not going away.

Brian Littleton has outlined a starting point  on the ShareASale blog for this policy discussion. As someone who has always focused on how adware can behave with regards to revenue generation, I am intrigued by his initial points. He appears to be envisioning toolbar technology used as a marketing vehicle versus a customer service vehicle. Marketing practices would use the toolbar for direct revenue generation, which is the most common use seen to date. Customer service would involve behaviors focused on the consumer experience, thus building branding, loyalty, and visitor retention for the affiliate’s own business. This form is a more passive marketing of the affiliate’s own business and does not tie the toolbar directly to  the affiliate link for tracking a commissionable sale. While I still believe software can behave “nicely” and be used for more direct revenue generation, I find Brian’s outside of the box thinking on this issue very interesting.

We need to show that we are up to the challenges of regulating the very technologies used to enhance and bring value to the affiliate channel. I’m excited to see a company with a track record and reputation as established as ShareASale’s stepping up to the plate to undertake the task of presenting meaningful policy in regards to toolbars. I look forward to having a policy in use that I can point to as an example of how software technology can be used in a harmonious and productive manner.

Will ShareASale be able to put the genie back into the bottle? I don’t think the technology can go back into the bottle. But can we have the benevolent genie? I think so. The real challenge will be whether or not ShareASale can overcome the stigma that has become attached with downloaded software, turning what has been somewhat of a black eye for affiliate marketing into a positive.

I will definitely be at this Roundtable that Brian has facilitated. I encourage any and all who care about the policies driving our industry to attend as well. I’m hoping to see as many merchants as affiliates in attendance as this is not an affiliate issue but an industry issue which impacts all parties in the equation.

Read more from the original source:
Putting the Genie Back Into the Bottle

Another of the great guys that I was able to catch up with at Affiliate Summit West 2009 was Scott Jangro, affiliate marketing blogger who actually has a hockey feud with one of our affiliate managers. Well, Scott and I stopped to chat about upcoming trends in the new year (video and mobile) and how the economy might affect the industry, and this is the video that came out of it.

Of course, quite a few other videos came out of the Summit, so you might want to subscribe to the ShareResults YouTube Channel or even the Share Results Blip.tv channel for higher resolutions versions.

iPhone Version

Read the original:
Scott Jangro on Affiliate Marketing in 2009

The following is part of a series covering the BlogWell conference which took place at Chicago’s Gleacher Center on Thursday, January 22.

Stan Joosten, Director of Holistic Consumer Communications for Proctor & Gamble began his presentation at BlogWell by emphasizing the importance of not treating social media as “shiny object media”. In other words, don’t be fooled by the latest and greatest fancy new thing.  Instead have one or more goals in mind before you start any social media initiative.

Know Your Competition

One potential goal for getting into social media is the defensive strategy of making certain that you know the full range of potential competitors and have a chance to become part of the conversation before you’re forever left behind.

His example of this need focused on the otherwise mundane and esoteric world of sock knitting. This unusual topic apparently has a wide following on the web, as evidenced by the over 14,000 posts at http://socknitters.com/phpBB2/ alone.

In this example, a sock knitter based in the Midwestern part of the United States who has been a loyal buyer of yarn at her local yarn retailer posts a comment on a forum requesting a sock pattern. A response to that post directs her to an Australian woman with a Facebook account who is happy to share the ideal pattern. That woman then directs her to the web site of a Swedish woman who has the absolutely perfect wool yarn to use in her sock knitting that only comes from one specific type of sheep.

The local retailer has forever lost a customer and never saw it coming.

Know Your Brand

Another potential goal of becoming involved with social media is to truly understand the current state of your brand. According to Joosten, your brand is not what you want it to be or what you say it is but rather what the public says it is. Now, thanks to social media, marketers can easily see exactly what that is.

Empower Your Brand Fans

The third potential goal Joosten discussed involves working with the brand fans you already have. According to him, this is the biggest missed opportunity for brand managers. He encouraged all marketers to give their brand fans tools to support the products they already love.

A strong example of this was the creation of a web site where consumers can add their reviews of Dawn® dishwashing products. As a result, in spite of Epinions.com only having 30 reviews for Dawn dish soap, P&G customers have added thousands of reviews of the various Dawn products, including over 775 for Dawn Direct Foam alone.

Replace or Augment Market Research

The final potential goal Joosten discussed was as a more dynamic, broader replacement for – or supplement to – other forms of market research.

His example for this is the http://BeingGirl.com site sponsored by Always and Tampax where girls who are maturing can ask the on-site doctor questions about that process and its implications. The site gives Always and Tampax brand managers a very real insight into the needs and wants of their target market and the exact words, phrases and questions they express with respect to the products. As a result, at least one brand manager said that they “don’t need focus groups any more”.

Proctor and Gamble is proving that multiple marketing goals can be met via the intelligent use of social media. Think carefully before beginning your initiatives and you can apply these goals to your program as well.

Guest blogger James R. Dickey is Executive Director of Marketing for Unitrin Specialty. His personal web site is at jamesrdickey.com. Watch for more of his coverage of BlogWell coming soon.

Read more:

Logging on to ABW this afternoon I was greated by a thread that burst into life and racked up a mass of interest in the blink of an eye. The attention grabbing thread had the title “ShareASale and Toolbars / Call for Participation on Guidelines” . Yes Oh My indeed, the bastion of BHO free marketing is considering its’ stance.

I highly recommend reading the thread and joining the discussion.

My thoughts :

A major concern I have with this idea, is that, all “BHO affiliate” tool bars, at the end of the day, do far more than just influence/decide which “BHO affiliate” gets the sale. They also canabilize merchants other sales channels, especially the ones based on loyalty, organic (direct to site/seo) and PPC. The bigger the brand the greater the the impact.

When I talk to merchants about tool bars I usually discuss the effect on the affiliate channel along side the impact to the above channels, large brand merchants (the ones that toolbars target) tend to get the majority of their traffic through the above (Toolbar targeted) channels, which ads no value and simply steals sales from the merchant.

How does SAS plan / propose to prevent toolbars that they allow on to Shareasale from cannabilizing a merchants other sales channels? If their plan is not all encompassing then they will simply be enabling tool bars to go to town on Shareasale merchants just like they do on LS, CJ and so forth, adding no value, but certainly adding to the BHO Affiliates revenue.

Here is the original:
Lions Tigers and BHOs. Oh My!

Anytime a conversation turns to content promotion via social media marketing, Digg is sure to be mentioned within the first few seconds. This is hardly surprising since Digg is the most popular of the social media bookmarking sites. Used properly, Digg can generate a ton of traffic to a website (enough to test even the strongest of servers if the content goes “hot”).

But a well-rounded social media marketing campaign is about more than just Digg. Of course, there are the usual suspects. Reddit comes to mind. But you should also take advantage of the many other niche bookmarking sites that have sprung up. While these niche sites won’t get you the volume of traffic that can be had from going hot on Digg, they are helpful for a few reasons.

Niche social media sites help you:

•     Get Higher Quality Traffic- Sure, going hot on Digg could get you about 20,000 visitors to your page, but the quality of the traffic leaves something to be desired. The quality of traffic from niche social media sites is usually higher than from a mainstream one. In fact, Tamar Weinberg did an interesting case study to find which generates better traffic: niche or generic social media sites. According to Weinberg the trend indicates that niche traffic is better.
•     Build Your Authority in Your Industry- I’ve also found doing well on niche social media sites helps you build your authority. Think about it: if your peers in your industry are voting for your content, it’s a solid endorsement of your level of knowledge and skill. You can use this new found respect to position yourself as an industry leader, thus improving the bottom line of your business.
•     Generate Relevant Inbound Links- While I don’t believe link relevancy plays a significant role in search engine placement, I do believe it affects the quality of the traffic coming from the inbound link. For example, let’s say two websites linked to this article: one of them is a website that sells lamps and another is an internet marketing blog. Which link would send visitors that are likelier to be truly interested in this article? The internet marketing blog of course. Niche social media sites tend to generate relevant back links that send quality traffic.

Other reasons to use niche social media sites:

•     Niche Social Media Users are more Supportive- If you’ve spent any time at all on Digg, you know how unforgiving the community can be. No matter how great your content is, there will always be trolls trying to stir up trouble. It’s not a big deal, but if you’re thin-skinned, it could get to you. I’ve noticed niche social media sites often have supportive communities that are there to help each other. As someone involved in Internet marketing, I tend to use Sphinn regularly. The community there is much more positive than on big sites like Digg, and I’ve learned quite a bit from the users there. It’s a healthy environment for interaction.
•     Your Success Rate Will Likely be Higher- Unless you’re a power Digg user, you’ll probably have a tough time getting your content to go hot on a regular basis. However, it’s typically easier to get your content to the front page on a niche site. Again, it won’t generate the volume of traffic Digg will, but if you can go hot on a few niche sites, you’ll get a fair amount of attention on a consistently.
•     All of Your Eggs Won’t be in One Basket- One of the best reasons to go deeper than Digg is the simple law of diversification. If you pin all of your hopes on one social media site, you’re sure to end up disappointed. By diversifying your social media marketing efforts, you improve your chances of having success. Of course, make sure you don’t spread yourself so thin that you can’t devote enough time to being a strong member of the community.

So, are you ready to further your efforts beyond Digg? Here’s a great list of 50 niche social media sites to get you started.

View post:
Looking Beyond Digg for Social Media Marketing

I just realized today how absent I’ve been from this blog. I don’t really know what’s going to come out in the post, as usual I’m just doing it on the fly. So I guess I’ll try and explain what I’ve been up to lately.

ASW Vegas/Early January

I did not attend ASW Vegas for a couple reasons. One being that I’m not 21 and just watching everybody gamble would make me want to cry. Second being I wouldn’t be allowed into the actual conference, which I have described about 1,000 times how RETARDED that is. I also felt like I needed a break from affiliate marketing and life in general.

So I decided to go on a road trip. Me and 4 of my friends drove straight from NY to Disney World in Florida, I was able to hook us up with a suite with Amex points so they were able to cut down on a lot of their costs. We had a total blast and every single day was nothing but fun. Except for the fact that…

Affiliate Marketing Meltdown

All I had been hoping for that was when I went on the road trip, everything with AM would be going fine. I wasn’t going to spend a minute doing work – and I didn’t. But a part of me just laughed and knew something would go wrong.

So in a nutshell, I have a personal bank account and a business bank account. All my affiliate revenue goes into my business bank account, and I just put what I need into my personal bank account (so it doesn’t have that much). Well for some reason I had my old personal Amex Platinum on one of my advertising accounts, and it racked up $75k in like a week and a half. I needed to go to the bank and shift 75k to my personal account, but obviously being in Florida didn’t allow that to happen and I didn’t want to have to try to find a bank in Florida and deal with it. I was on vacation and I was NOT going to work.

So I just shrugged it off and Amex froze my account. Which wasn’t a big deal either because the very next day both of my advertising accounts got slapped. Google got slapped, and Facebook disabled my whole account. The FB thing didn’t make any sense and I got it turned back on today, but the Google slap I had coming. Basically EVERYTHING got shut down, and surprisingly I didn’t let that affect my vacation at all. I got back home and got on the grind, and I’m about halfway to where I currently was. My employee put together a graph for us to laugh at, so I figured I’d share it haha. This is January :

Today I think will be 6k profit about, so the climb back to 10k is en route.

Google Updates

Just to kind of share my experiences with Google, nothing has really changed at all for me over the past few months. Go to the Adwords category of my blog and not much has changed from that information.

You can still use the destination URL trick. They still slap you out of nowhere. You still have to bid high to start and then lower bids.

Facebook Updates

Facebook has been a changing beast, in bad ways. ANYTHING diet related they know to disapprove instantly. Even if you want to cloak your ads, getting decent adcopy through will be hard because they can sniff it out. You can cloak in other verticals though and still get it through, but eventually they’re probably going to catch and disapprove it.

The trick to Facebook traffic is just volume of ads. You can make 50 ads with a $500 budget. If you delete 45 of the ads, the remaining 5 won’t spend $500 (assuming you’re just maxing out your volume). So when I have Matt make a Facebook campaign, he usually makes around 50-100 ads per campaign. That’s how you get volume. Getting things approved helps too, lol.

Employees Rock

Seriously, go out and hire one. Find a smart Chinese kid at your local college and pay him $8/hr and tell him he gets to work out of your house and gets to come to work naked if he wants. It’s worth it.

Matt is now to the point where he can create new campaigns, run, and manage them without my help. I usually have to get initial things going, make the right landing page, and give him some ad copy. But other than that, he can replicate and manage things which is REALLY nice. It gives me more time to talk to my contacts and set up better deals. And gives me more time to play Xbox.

Secret Plans

I’ve been working a lot recently on some secret plans which I’m not going to talk about right now. Maybe in a month I can speak more about it, but it’s been taking up a good portion of time recently.

Referrals Kickin’ Ass Seabass

I usually get about 95% noob referrals that never make me money (due to the nature of this blog I guess), but this month I’ve actually brought in some nice change from referrals. Here’s roughly what each network has made me this month :

CX Digital (92 referrals) : $1,300
Hydra (68 referrals) : $1,200
Neverblue (223 referrals) : $800
Azoogle (40 referrals) : $200

Judging from the crappy 2% I get (5% of the profit they make from Hydra which is even crappier), my referrals have done around $175,000 revenue in January. Not bad guys! Most of it came from a few affiliates, so more power to them.

The Future

What’s in my future? Ermmmmm…probably a checklist :

-Keep doing what I’m doing
-Secret plans
-More road trips and crazy fun stuff
-Trip to Cali next month to meet with a business partner
-ad:tech San Fran in April
-ASE this summer WHERE I WILL BE 21
-Hopefully blogging more

LOST is on soon, so see ya!

Go here to see the original:
Where Has Waldo Been?

Currently going on at eComXpo.com is the latest installment of the eComXpo virtual tradeshow for internet marketers, which happens entirely online in the realms of cyberspace. No travel ling required; no hotel room to book… none of those hassles.

Today is the first day of the show and it will be continued tomorrow. Admission for attendees is absolutely free for all of the 8,000+ expected attendees.

The virtual trade show has all the elements of a real-life event, except for the meeting people face to face, the parties and the hangovers the next day . Exhibitors have virtual booth, you have a virtual bag to collect contact information and virtual schwag. You can chat with people at the booths, not just with the folks who run it, but also with the folks who visit it… you can even chat with anybody who runs around on the exhibit hall floors or any of the lounges.

Like a regular trade show, eComXpo has educational sessions, with the difference, that attending them at this virtual conference is free, no “FULL PASS” to access them is required. Just go to eComXpo.com and register and off you go.

If you missed any of the educational sessions already, no worries, because all of the presentations and panel discussions will become available on the eComXpo web site after the show is over. You have to have an account though, which is another good reason to check it out. The session recordings will be available for 90 days, before they will be taken down.

eComXpo is a good training exercise, if you never attended a conference before.

Let me quote a post of my own that I wrote in October 2006 for ReveNews.com.

The eComXpo has a lot of advantages to attract affiliates of all levels:

• The free admission makes it possible for any affiliate to attend regardless of available budget, newbie and supper affiliate.
• There is no need to travel to get to the show, you just go to your computer and you are there. You can attend as long as you want, 5 minutes or 5 hours or every hour for 15 minutes. Its up to you or the time available, especially for affiliates that still have a day job.
• Affiliates that can afford to spend the time and money for the trade show pass, flight, hotel, taxi etc. (which is not cheap) have a hard time to believe and see for themselves that the investment is worth it. eComXpo is a good introduction of those Affiliates to the principle of those tradeshows and the opportunities that can come from it.

Entirely virtual Tradeshows like eComXpo will never replace the real live human contact of tradeshows in the real world, not to mention the socializing and networking opportunities at the parties that are organized by show organizer itself and various sponsors.

I used to be one of those affiliates and eComXpo (among other things) made me attend real-life conferences afterwards.
I will be one of the presenters at the event, among many other known figures in this industry. My session will be at the end of Day 1, Wednesday, January 28, 2009 at 8:20 pm EST. It is a ca. 50 minutes long presentation titled “What Makes a Good Datafeed? Tips for Merchants” and as the title already says… it’s about product data feeds.

My presentation slides are already available at my Slideshare.net net account. In order to hear what I have to say to those slides, you have to come to my session on Wednesday when every attendee will get the information that my slides are up on Slideshare.net. So if you are reading this before the coming Wednesday, you have already the advantage that you can check out the presentation before everybody else.

If you are a Merchant or Network and interested in the subject of affiliate data feeds, make sure that you also check out my data feed related resources at my website at Cumbrowski.com/datafeeds and my data feeds primer article at Cumbrowski.com/datafeeds101.

Cheers and see you soon in Cyberspace!

Carsten Cumbrowski
Internet Marketer and Blogger
http://www.cumbrowski.com/

Here is the original post:
eComXpo 2009 – The Virtual Tradeshow for Internet Marketers – Now Open

When an Internet application doesn’t work as expected or your connection seems flaky, how can you tell whether there is a problem caused by your broadband ISP, the application, your PC, or something else? It can be difficult for experts, let alone average Internet users, to address this sort of question today.

Last year we asked a small group of academics about ways to advance network research and provide users with tools to test their broadband connections. Today Google, the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute, the PlanetLab Consortium, and academic researchers are taking the wraps off of Measurement Lab (M-Lab), an open platform that researchers can use to deploy Internet measurement tools.

Researchers are already developing tools that allow users to, among other things, measure the speed of their connection, run diagnostics, and attempt to discern if their ISP is blocking or throttling particular applications. These tools generate and send some data back-and-forth between the user’s computer and a server elsewhere on the Internet. Unfortunately, researchers lack widely-distributed servers with ample connectivity. This poses a barrier to the accuracy and scalability of these tools. Researchers also have trouble sharing data with one another.

M-Lab aims to address these problems. Over the course of early 2009, Google will provide researchers with 36 servers in 12 locations in the U.S. and Europe. All data collected via M-Lab will be made publicly available for other researchers to build on. M-Lab is intended to be a truly community-based effort, and we welcome the support of other companies, institutions, researchers, and users that want to provide servers, tools, or other resources that can help the platform flourish.

Today, M-Lab is at the beginning of its development. To start, three tools running on servers near Google’s headquarters are available to help users attempt to diagnose common problems that might impair their broadband speed, as well as determine whether BitTorrent is being blocked or throttled by their ISPs. These tools were created by the individual researchers who helped found M-Lab. By running these tools, users will get information about their connection and provide researchers with valuable aggregate data. Like M-Lab itself these tools are still in development, and they will only support a limited number of simultaneous users at this initial stage.

At Google, we care deeply about sustaining the Internet as an open platform for consumer choice and innovation. No matter your views on net neutrality and ISP network management practices, everyone can agree that Internet users deserve to be well-informed about what they’re getting when they sign up for broadband, and good data is the bedrock of sound policy. Transparency has always been crucial to the success of the Internet, and, by advancing network research in this area, M-Lab aims to help sustain a healthy, innovative Internet.

You can learn more at the M-Lab website. If you’re a researcher who’d like to deploy a tool, or a company or institution that is interested in providing technical resources, we invite you to get involved.

Posted by Vint Cerf, Chief Internet Evangelist, and Stephen Stuart, Principal Engineer

Credit:
Introducing Measurement Lab

While at Affiliate Summit West 2009, I covered a session about offline affiliate marketing for Revenews.com. The session was by Jonathan Treiber, the CEO of RevTrax. Following the session, I was able to catch up with Jonathan to discuss just what offline affiliate marketing is, how it works, and who is most likely to benefit from it.

And there’s a lot more Affiliate Summit video to come, so consider subscribing to the ShareResults YouTube Channel or even the Share Results Blip.tv channel for higher resolutions versions.

See the original post here:
Offline Affiliate Marketing

Do you regularly work with your webpages and AdSense implementation, tinkering with HTML or PHP and creating images and code on the fly? If you do, Firefox add-ons can help streamline the process of creating webpages. Here are some in particular that you may find useful:

ColorZilla
This extension tells you which RGB or hex color you’re looking at, to help you make sure you created that logo for your business with just the right shade of blue, for instance. The tool also creates custom color palettes while you’re browsing, so you can use them in your designs.

MeasureIt
Like the name says, use this add-on to measure the width and height in pixels of any element you see on a webpage. It’s very simple to use, and you can define how much space you have left for that AdSense ad unit on the right-side.

IE View
Do you frequently use Internet Explorer to check how your website renders on that browser? This add-on allows you to view the way any page would look if it were opened in IE, without the hassle of opening another browser. You can also see pages that aren’t Firefox-friendly much more easily.

WebDeveloper toolbar
This all-in-one toolbar gives you quick control over things like JavaScript display, form and CSS elements, screen resizing (so you know what your website looks like in smaller resolutions), HTML validation, and much more.

Hopefully, we’ll soon have a similar set of add-ons for Chrome, and we’ll be sure to share them with our readers.

What are your favorite add-ons for web developing? Leave us a comment below.

Posted by Laura Prado – Inside AdSense Team

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Add on to AdSense

The following is part of a series covering the BlogWell conference which took place at Chicago’s Gleacher Center on Thursday, January 22.

Andy Sernovitz, CEO of GasPedal, stated in his introduction to the over 230 attendees at the BlogWell, “Starting a blog at a 5,000+ person company is like fighting a war on two fronts. At the same time we’re fighting against resistance inside the company, we’re being disparaged and fought against by independent bloggers who criticize corporate blogging in general.”

But, Serovitz said, “it’s worth it because the openness and transparency/honesty that doing blogging correctly brings will bring change important enough to fight for.”

Nick Ayres’, Interactive Marketing Manger for Home Depot, presentation, titled “The Digital Orange Apron”, explained the objectives and accomplishments of their social media efforts. As background, he explained that market share in their space is about half Home Depot, half Lowes, Menards and Ace combined. Consumers used to express a strong preference for Home Depot because of the great assistance and advice provided by their store staff (“orange aprons”). But there were many signs they were losing that reputation and the preference/loyalty they had as a result.

This loss of preference was publicly made painfully clear for Home Depot in the Scott Burns MSN article of March 7, 2007. Within two weeks that article had received over 2,000 comments from people agreeing that service had plummeted. Home Depot’s CEO responded online and all Home Depot employees had a vivid example of both the passion surrounding the brand and the incredible communicative power of social media.

The mission of “The Digital Orange Apron” is to use social media to recapture customer attention and preference, to connect with a new customer set, and to engage store associates (employees) in new ways. They intend to reach those goals by doing online what the best associates do in the stores, more efficiently, broadly, and consistently.

The Home Depot’s foray on Twitter has gone through an extensive evolution. Initially it was a move to block poachers and make sure they reserved the name in case the service became popular.  Later they realized that they could use the timeliness of Twitter in conjunction with their unique strength (particularly in the South) as a critical provider during hurricane season. They got a seat literally inside the Hurricane Command Center during the onset of Hurricane Gustav, learned exactly which stores were going to be open and, thanks to Twitter, were able to spread the word immediately.

They also spread information from their pre-existing hurricane preparedness guide and communicated which stores were out of which items during the Gustav experience to save customers unnecessary aggravation.

Two critical elements discovered during the experience included:

1. Do not use Twitter to try to sell products, but only to provide information people might need or want.
2. Set one person to be the face and voice of Home Depot on Twitter.

Since its inception, they’ve received multiple comments on Twitter about new and/or renewed brand preference, showing that they are achieving their goal. Still, they are not pushing that they are on Twitter at all via ads or PR, and they are intentionally not measuring its success by short-term sales increases.

In addition to Twitter, they have also experimented with online video, Facebook and other social media efforts. The major lessons The Home Depot has learned from those are:

1. Start at the beginning as often as possible. Talk to your customers. Figure out what they want/expect.
2. Find others at the company who are passionate about the brand and the space and make them the evangelists.
3. Scratch and claw for small wins, then use them to capture the imagination of an executive champion.
4. Don’t let it turn into a “campaign”. This is a conversation, not a one-off. Make sure you have or can get buy-in for the long-term commitment needed.

Learning those lessons is, in part, why Home Depot’s Nick Ayres encouraged the BlogWell audience to persevere; fighting the war on two fronts that is creating and managing social media initiatives in a large corporation.

Guest blogger James R. Dickey is Executive Director of Marketing for Unitrin Specialty. His personal web site is at jamesdickey.com. Watch for more of his coverage of BlogWell coming soon.

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Behind the Orange Apron – Presentation Coverage from BlogWell